Row, row, row your boat...

Gently down the stream... Merrily merrily, merrily, merrily... Life is but a dream

Sep 28, 2022

We get 90 minutes free internet. Per device. Yup. Internet, wifi at sea. My primitive mind marvels at this. Seemingly gone are the days where you get on board a boat or plane and that’s it, you just have to be present and in the real world, at least for the duration of your journey. No, now, you can be connected all the time. A part of me delights at this. Another part worries some and misses the simplicity of the 90s. But still, hey-ho, brush that thought away and give myself the task of writing this article post in under 90 minutes.

On your marks, get set, go!

So, what else to write about when on a ferry for the good part of two days, but the four ferry crossings we’ve done on our adventures. One per month it turned out to be. But, for some reason we seem to have a knack for attracting Drama Karma as regards this mode of transportation…

June

We first embarked on our epic four-month campervanning adventure back in early June of this year, taking a ferry from Portsmouth, UK to Santander, Spain. We were so excited! We’d packed up our life into Rita, our van, and were so excited about the months ahead. We were starting with a retreat in southern Portugal, so time was somewhat of the essence. We left Brighton with lots of time to spare, just in case.

Oh, weren’t we glad we did.

We arrive at the mouth of the port of Portsmouth (I know, terrible) and sit, obligingly and patiently in line. Eventually it’s our turn. We go through all the rigmarole that has become travel these days, handing over all the necessary documents and papers to a perfectly-well trained sullen and rude customs officer sat in the safety of her booth. Is there something in the job description for airport and port staff that states that they must be “fittingly rude, curt and show no empathy or understanding whatsoever towards the willful traveller and in the case there may be some issue, it is of utmost importance that they ignite their inner pitbull and bark orders and negations at said unsuspecting traveller, just to reassert who’s boss”?? That’s certainly what it feels like sometimes. Joking aside, it’s so sad to see how ignored the emotions of the heart are in “normal everyday life”. How we vibe with each other is fundamental, more than the rational mind realises, and it stays within each of us, slowly sedimenting and forming part of our harder shell, if we’re not careful.

“These won’t do. You can’t get on the ferry.”

Wham! First punch landed right where it hurts most. What was the problem? It seems we didn’t have the right Covid docs with us, back when it was still essential for most countries, to go through this bureaucratic faff. Doesn’t it almost feel like it was made ultra-complicated and pointlessly confusing on purpose? I’d always been taught that if something is complicated, either those bringing it forth into existence don’t understand it well enough, or it’s intentionally done so in order to confuse and ultimately numb - or dumb some might say - us down. Anyhoo, back to the issue at hand.

Thankfully there was still time, though not much, so we rushed to do it the right way, as instructed. Upon returning to the ferry terminal, we rushed past the initial warden, confused look on his face upon seeing us twice in such a short space of time, and we then sit waiting for our favourite lady of the hour to usher us towards her kiosk. The only people still needing to embark were us and a bunch of bikers who were also having issues, it seemed.

She inspects our new assortment of documents, this time begrudgingly satisfied, and lets us through.

And that’s how our journey started.

Once on board the lovely Salamanca ferry, we were pleasantly surprised. It was so clean! There were even people polishing the handrails on the staircases. The staff were French and uber-courteous. It was to be a two-night journey down to the Iberian peninsula, a veritable mini cruise, with waiter-service three-course meal included in the price in a lovely, retro restaurant with surprisingly digestible food. Spirits lifted, we embark on our adventure, full steam ahead.

July

Our next voyage was going to have its own excitement too. We’d decided to spend some time in Italy, my previous home for nearly two decades, and after three years of not being able to go there, I was having serious withdrawal effects. Italy had to happen.

We were due to sail from Barcelona to Genova after staying with friends in the hidden, mountainous gem of Cervera del Maestre, just a few hours south of Barcelona. For some reason not only did we totally miscalculate how long in advance we needed to arrive to catch our ferry, but we also managed to fit so much into the morning that our GPS literally told us we were going to arrive far too late and potentially miss the boat altogether. Damn! Ok, no more driving out of our way to go to magical water sources to refuel on so-called spring water!

The side to me that has been called Ayrton Sonia in my younger years perked up and knew we needed a bit of that now. Metaphorical driver goggles on, my focus was entirely on optimising our drive time, using slipstreams and the inside of curves as much as possible, whilst fully respecting the driving speed limit, of course. Eventually, we arrive in Barcelona and make our way to the splendid esplanade where the docks were…. and how many!? How were we going to work out which was the right one? That’s it! We were done for! How could we possibly make it now with all this time-wasting, going round and round in circles?!

Eventually, we chanced upon the right one and were met by a kind Catalan man in a high vis vest. It seems he didn’t have to meet the job description of needing Cruella de Vil-like joy at late-arrivers and ill-prepared travellers (also known as free-spirits-not-living-their-lives-in-accordance-to-the-top-down-bureaucratic-oppression-squashing-life-energy-out-of-us). This one had slipped the net and had still maintained his humanity. His eyes darted down to his watch, to the ferry and back to his watch again. Quick calculations of probability racing through his mind more than likely.

“You don’t have much time, but if you hurry, maybe you can make it”.

Ok, we’d worked that out... What we were waiting for was for him to usher us forward so we could start embarking before we could breathe a gasp of relief.

“You must go to the ticket office to get a ticket first”.

Our eyes almost popped out of heads.

“Can’t we just get on the boat?”

Two buffoons. That’s what he must have been thinking. or at least that’s what I was.

“No, I’m sorry. You must go to the ticket office. We will make it quick. Park here. One of you must run to the ticket office over there. Go through the car park, on the docking side, it is the quickest”.

Alright then. Out of the two of us, my partner, M, had the longest legs and is a long-distance runner, so it made sense for him to take on this task. Like lightning he springs off his starting point and races to the building which held our golden tickets.

I sit and wait in the van. Patiently, I’d like to say, but I’d be lying. My heart was beating fast. I could see the last few cars being accepted onto the ferry, a mere trickling of them left to go. And us, without even our tickets yet.

Don’t think negatively. Don’t be fatalistic. Manifest, manifest, manifest. We’re getting on that ferry. Italian pizza, ice cream, coffee and hugging my dear friends there was going to happen.

Thank you for reading SONIA TER HOVANESSIAN. This post is public so feel free to share it.

After what felt like an eternity, I see M coming back, running but I couldn’t quite work out if he’d been successful or not. As he approached Rita I could see the renewed hope in his eyes. In his right hand he was indeed clutching our tickets! Like a get-away vehicle, with tyres screeching and my partner-in-crime hanging out of the side, we make our way back to Mr High Vis, brandishing our tickets. He springs into action, sends over notice of our arrival to his colleagues at the ferry and wishes us good luck, fists of victory punching the air as we hurtle on by.

We get to the boat only to see that they were already raising the ramp! No! We were too late! They’d finished loading up the vehicles. That’s it. We’d failed.

Manifest, manifest, manfiest, a soft whisper from within could be felt…

To our right was another Mr High Vis with a walkie-talkie. He’d got the message of our arrival. Loud and clear. After some shouting and flailing of arms, and a confused exchange of glances among the High Vis crew, the ramp jerkily stopped ascending and sure enough, it started coming back down to ground level to welcome us on board. We’d made it!!

Once parked we ‘just’ had to find our way out of the garage deck. It seemed we were so late boarding that they’d brought down the internal metal doors separating the various areas in the garage deck. We were locked in. We even tried to use the emergency phone to call for help, but thankfully we stopped the internal panic enough to realise there was a heavy-duty blue metal door with a wheel for a handle. Could we open it? We tried and tried again and it was only on our third attempt, with all our force and willpower did the wheel turn and the door clunked open. Freedom was that bit closer! We stepped in through the opening to find ourselves on the main ramp of the garage. We walked up it. Surely there must be a way out? Once on the upper deck, we saw a small door in the corner and yes, it was open!! Not the best or most obvious arrival, but at least we were in!

Once we’d settled and found our spot, M started to tell me about what happened when he went to get the tickets. It seems the Gods were on our side after all..

“After my sprint to the building, I arrived at what essentially was the back entrance, the door the staff used. I opened it and stepped in. I found myself in what seemed to be the back office, with desks and people’s mugs and pictures, pencils, computers, etc., but there was not a soul there. It certainly wasn’t where customers were meant to arrive. And certainly not where I was meant to be either. Faced with the alternative of exiting and walking all the way around to the other side, which would result in us missing the ferry, I opted for Option B. Beyond the desks I could make out another internal door. Could that take me to the ticket office?

I stepped out into the ticket office but on the staff side of the kiosk, behind the impenetrable plexiglass new as of 2020. There was only one member of staff there, a woman in a red uniform, staring at me probably wondering if I was a bank robber who’d got his GPS location wrong or just some weirdo. Who was this guy? A flurry of huffs and puffs came forth from the weirdo.

“I need to get onto the Grimaldi boat!”

Another late-comer. Rolling her eyes, she indicated the kiosk beyond the plexiglass on the other side of the room. I opened the door she was indicating and dashed through, approached the Grimaldi lady, and soon I had our tickets. Now all I had to do was get back to Sonia and get on board! I was faced with the same dilemma – either run all the way around or use the same “short cut” through the back entrance. I rushed back to the same door leading to the staff side, the only route I knew, but it only opened with a buzzer or a code. An exchange of knowing looks between lady in red and me and soon enough the buzzer was pressed and the door opened. I stepped through, nodding in thanks, darted to the back door, past the pictures and pencils and back out into the docking yard to Rita and Sonia.

Lesson of the day?

Positive thinking and kind souls open doors of possibility for us. Quite literally.

August

Italy was incredible and I’ll certainly be reflecting on my time there too, but it needed to come to an end and Portugal was calling once more. We’d actually attempted to find a way to bypass driving across the width of Spain, looking at sailing from Sicily to North Africa in the hope there may be some way of accessing Andalucìa from Morocco, but it seems that would have entailed zigzagging between Africa and France so back to Grimaldi we went. Ok, it hadn’t been as clean or as well-organised as the Brittany Ferries crossing, but it was ok in the end. It got us from point A to point B. We’ll just make sure we arrive early so as not to have any more issues of boarding late.

We arrived so early that we had time for our last coffee in Italy. In the port bar. No ordinary bar. We started to notice a few hand-written signs covering the official labels on some of their harder liquor and dotted about the bar. An interesting sense of humour, to say the least. There was a joyous feel to the bar staff and its regulars, people with the glimmer of life in their eyes and a spring to their step. I’ll let the picture speak for itself…

After much waiting in queues of cars, we eventually boarded the ferry. What we found when we emerged onto the upper passenger decks can only be described as utter mayhem. People everywhere, queues everywhere, chaos. It took us a lifetime to get to our room as the signage was so dire and when we eventually did we found our neighbours attempting to open their door.

“Many of the keys aren’t working”, said the lady of the couple, desperation setting into a glazed look in her eyes.

We tried ours. Yup, she was right.

We unravelled our path into the maze of rooms until we came to an opening. To the right was a shrill singing drowning out the unimpressed moans of the passengers on board. That’s where M decided he’d wait until the queues shortened. I had other ideas in mind. I head to the reception only to find an immense queue of people… but wait… they weren’t queuing for the reception for new keys, there was another queue happening… but for what? To my amazement, the people walking away were holding triumphantly in their arms loo paper and towels. Yup, from waiter service and polished handrails in our first ferry to rationing out bare essentials in this one. Oh, how standards were dropping.

Eventually, it all got sorted but the only safe place in the ferry was our room, avoiding the carpet with bare feet at all costs. They say a picture speaks a thousand words…

Gratitude is a good place to be. It opens the heart and helps us to connect. It’s easy to take things for granted when we think that we’ve been at peace in Europe for nearly 80 years, the longest period of sustained peace in this part of the world ever, or at least in modern history. The last few years have certainly opened up some of the underlying issues though. Frustrations are running high and tempers are flying. Protests are becoming violent, people are fed up with being pushed in the corner, being told what to do, what not to do, with government overreach and inequalities in society fast becoming reminiscent of the vast inequalities present in oppressive regimes like Communism and Fascism, under the guise of unity and equality for all. This ferry is the epitomy of those cracks. It was real. Gritty. Filthy. Disorganised. Chaotic. There was quite literally the rationing of essentials and queues of passive individuals at the mercy of the Ferry Dictator. I pray we see more true equality in the world and that the helm of our collective ship can be steered away from imminent disaster.

September

Bilbao to Portsmouth, the homeward voyage at the end of this adventure. Brittany Ferries, oh how we missed thee, and from whence I write. But yet again, it seems I was almost denied access. We queued up in our van and prepared our ID documents. My French passport was being renewed so I had to travel with my French ID card, something I’d done a few other times, without issue. Upon reaching the customs kiosk, a woman, perfectly fitting to her job description, barked at me.

“This is not a passport. You cannot enter the UK”.

Breathe deeply, Sonia. Don’t bite.

I tried to explain to her the situation and the reality of my legal rights. And also that I live in the UK. The UK is my home and she couldn’t just deny me entry in such a way.

Stubbornly she put her foot down, fiercely defending her position and almost seeming to want to be right, regardless. I showed her a multitude of other documents, some of which online, showing my Settled Status as a European Citizen in the UK. Brexit was indeed successful, but only in creating more division between us, more wealth for governments and the bureaucratic arms of our control system and in annoying the hell out of us. Ever notice their promises never came about? Nothing changed for the good. And yet we still believe and follow these clowns who parade as politicians, telling us what to do.

To cut a long story short, eventually after sending us to see her supervisor in the terminal, who quickly sent us back to our beloved pitbull, she let me in but not without getting in a few harsh whips of her words first,

“I’ll let you in but you’ll see what will happen with the Police”.

Almost threatening and smug in tone.

Empathy, hello? We need an extra dose of it right over here.

Eventually, we were allowed entry. We found our room, had much needed showers and waited excitedly for dinner, memories of our first journey warming our hearts and rumblings tummies. But whereas the first crossing was like being on oil, this one was quite different. A series of storms were following us and soon enough, after being accompanied to a really cosy table on the external corner of the restaurant at the helm of the ship, our complexions had turned mustard yellow and conversation was the last thing on our mind. Compassionately, the waiter packed up our dinner and we stumbled out of the restaurant with all our focus on not tripping and not covering the squeaky-clean carpet with our lasagnes and chocolate cake. We got to our room, placed the tray carefully down and doused our noses in Lavender and Peppermint essential oils. Soon our stomachs settled and we could feed ourselves once more. The best medicine in all of this, I feel, was the kindness shown to us by the staff.

“Bon diner et surtout bon courage !», the maître de salle encouraging bid us with as we swayed past, deep breathing in full swing.

Despite getting seasick rather easily in choppy waters, I’ve always loved travelling by sea. There’s something reminiscent of a slower way of life, of olden days. For a while, you have no choice but to slow down and let yourself be rocked into a sweet reverie of days gone by. A sweet lullaby cast at sea, bringing us back home.

Travelling is such an incredible way to learn and explore, both within and without. Often, the best lessons are with the people you meet along the way, who open doors of possibility for you, who show you kindness and support, who give love. There’s always room in the world for more love, so when faced with clashes and pitbulls, it’s a good way to ground yourself back into the reflection of:

What would love do?